Sphere Entertainment Co (NYSE:SPHR), the New York Stock Exchange-listed live entertainment and media company behind the newly opened, instantly iconic Sphere venue in Las Vegas, rallied nearly 10% in early Monday trades.
It follows The Sphere’s grand opening last Friday when U2 kicked off its 25-show U2:UV Achtung Baby residency at the $2.3 billion venue, which is the largest spherical building in the world.
Wrapped in hundreds of thousands of square feet of external LEDs and housing a 160,000 square foot, 16k resolution interior display, U2’s immersive live experience at The Sphere went instantly viral over the weekend, serving as a benchmark for live experiences to come.
Instagram and Twitter were awash with footage of the immersive U2 show, where the majority of the crowd can be seen taking footage with their smartphones rather than paying attention to Bono and crew.
If all the concerts inside The Sphere in Vegas look like this it’s guaranteed nobody will ever put down their phones to actually watch it
— Marc Istook (@MarcIstook) September 30, 2023
Nonetheless, Sphere Entertainment’s monument to visual immersion has grabbed the world’s attention, not least shareholder who have seen their stake double since the start of the year.
Sphere Entertainment shares were swapping for $40 with a market capitalisation of $1.38 billion at the time of writing.